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This article analyses the discourse of the Gazeta Nacional newspaper circulated in the city of Rio de Janeiro in the period prior to the signing of the Lei Áurea ["Golden Law"] abolishing slavery in Brazil. It considers how the publication presented the criteria for citizenship and also investigates the importance it attributed to liberalism. The newspaper was subtitled Órgão Republicano ["Republican Organ"] and relied on participation from leaders of the movement in the Court. Debates were published on different proposals for the procedure for abolishing slavery with monarchists and those defending the republic itself. Texts published in the Gazeta Nacional therefore reveal possible strategies for releasing slaves and organising the post-abolition society conceived by members of the 1870 generation. Considering newspapers' contribution to the formation of the memory of an event through serving as a space for the exercise of power, this study focuses on an object and a distinct source for an analysis of the end of the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]